The first work produced in real-time by the "Paik-Abe Video Synthesizer," "Video Commune" was broadcast live on Channel 44 of WGBH on August 1, 1970 for four hours from 9pm. As suggested in the subtitle, "Beatles from Beginning to End," the Beatles song were played throughout the program, while Shuya Abe dealt with the synthesizer, in which other artists including Russell Connor also took part. The materials to distort, transform, and synthesize were the music films of The Beatles, video recordings of Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik's performances, and some images produced in real-time at the studio. The viewers were also led to contribute, by narrations to instruct them to "do your own thing and treat it as an electronic wallpaper or like a light show," or to adjust colour and brightness of their monitors at home. When the video synthesizer had to be reconfigured in the course of the broadcast, music programs and commercials from Mainichi Broadcasting System, Osaka were inserted, without being edited, and without being translated. This was a kind of cross-cultural cooperation between two TV stations, and also the first broadcast work for Paik to state his intention for borderless, "global" television.
